


if i loved you less

by ninzied



Category: Daredevil (TV), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, things that i wasn't meant to hear, things you said, things you said at 1am, when you were crying, when you were drunk, when you were scared, with too many miles between us
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-17
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:20:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23691508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninzied/pseuds/ninzied
Summary: "If I loved you less, I might be able to talk about it more." –Emma, Jane AustenBased off a series of "things you said" prompts. Rated T to E.
Relationships: Frank Castle/Karen Page
Comments: 109
Kudos: 217





	1. things you said when you were drunk

She gets the call at 2AM.

Working for The Bulletin had gotten her in the habit of leaving her phone ringer on at night. Anonymous tips and uneasy sources didn’t tend to stick to a normal day schedule.

But Karen mostly freelances now, and doesn’t currently have any projects lined up. The only person she can think of who’d call her this late is—

“Hello?” she says into the phone, slightly panicked. She almost says his name out loud, but stops herself just in time. Just in case it’s not him at all, and whoever’s on the other line isn’t calling as a friend.

“Hi. Miss Page?” It’s a male voice she doesn’t recognize. “Sorry to bother you this late at night, but—”

“What happened?” Karen cuts in. Even half-awake, her thoughts are a whir, breaking down every possible explanation. Is he a cop? Maybe something happened to Matt, or Foggy or—

“Sorry, everything’s fine,” says the voice hastily. “However, this does concern, um – a mutual friend of ours.”

There’s a scuffling noise, and then the man’s addressing something in the background, his words going muffled like he has a hand to the receiver. “Hey – man, just quit it for one second. This is for your own good.”

Another voice filters through, rough as a car engine. “Who’s that?”

The air leaves Karen’s lungs in a whoosh. Frank. It _is_ Frank.

Frank says, “Curt – what’d you – for chrissakes—”

There’s a fumbling sound, and then some more cursing as this man Curt gets back on the line. “I apologize. I know the timing isn’t great, but – would you mind coming over? Frank has some things he needs to say to you.”

“The hell I—”

“Man, stop getting in your own way.”

“I’ll be right there,” says Karen.

“Great,” Curt tells her. “I’ll text you the address.”

She’s dressed and out of the apartment within ten minutes.

…

She’s never seen Frank drunk before.

But if she’s completely honest with herself, Frank has probably been a lot of things in his life that Karen can only imagine now. He was a husband. He was a dad. In another time, he must have done things like meet the girl, ask her out, go to the movies and order them drinks at the bar.

In fact, the closest to ordinary thing that Karen’s ever done with him is drink coffee in a diner, and even that was not so normal in the end.

So she doesn’t know what to expect from all this. But she wouldn’t be who she is if she didn’t come fully prepared.

Curtis Hoyle greets her at the door, welcoming her into his home like they’re already old friends. And Karen can’t help but think that if they were meeting under different circumstances – if it weren’t in the middle of the night, if it weren’t on account of the Punisher piss-drunk and causing a scene in his living room – then she could definitely see herself being friends with this guy.

“Thank you for coming.” He gives her a rueful sort of grin. “I know it’s late. I just thought – you deserve to hear what he has to say. Even though he’s being kind of an ass about it.”

“I can see that,” says Karen.

Curtis is kind, and patient, and apologetic, and way more charitable toward Frank than Karen is feeling at the moment. She should be touched that Curtis reached out, that he’s trying to mend whatever’s broken between them.

But as it stands currently, she doesn’t have the bandwidth for much more than anger. Anger with Frank, for rejecting the after she’d offered to him and still finding some way to drag her back in. But most of all, anger with herself for being here in spite of herself.

Frank takes one look at her and turns away.

“Goddamn it, Curt.” He’s pacing back and forth in the room, trigger finger tapping into his thigh. Suddenly there isn’t enough air in the room for Karen to draw a normal breath. The tension in Frank’s body is a palpable, precarious thing, and there’s nowhere else for it to go.

“Well, she’s here now,” says Curtis, his tone firm but encouraging. “So what are you going to do about it, Frank?”

Frank’s silent, glaring at the wall with mutinous intent.

“Come on, man,” Curt urges. “Tell her what you told me earlier.”

Karen holds out a hand, drawing them back to focus on her – Curt with surprise, and Frank with a weariness that she wishes didn’t hurt as much as it does.

“I can take it from here,” she says.

Curtis looks over at Frank for a second, appraising. “Sure, of course. Let me know if there’s anything else I can do.” And he slips quietly into the hall, the sound of a door latching closed a moment later.

As soon as Curtis is gone, Frank turns to Karen and says, “You shouldn’t’ve come.”

“I’m starting to get that impression.” She gestures over at the couch. “Sit down, Frank.”

He blinks at her once, but then he complies without a word. He looks like a caged thing, sitting there, and as she goes to seat herself on the couch cushion next to him he looks away again, like her proximity is something unbearable to him.

Karen lets out a shaky exhale. “So. Not a happy drunk, I take it.”

He makes a snorting sound that could be a laugh, and for one small, liberating second, it eases some of the tightness in her chest.

“’S’not that,” he tells her at last. He leans forward onto his knees, clasping his hands together. He stares down at them hard, as if it’s taking all his willpower just to keep them still.

“What is it, then?”

He looks at her – really looks at her, this time, and it finally gives her a chance to look back. For all his posturing, for all his holding back, his eyes are bright and so very warm, stealing her breath in a different way now.

“I know how badly I hurt you, Karen. When I…” He trails off, and lets the silence speak for itself.

She’s the one who has to look away this time, blinking back the sudden sting in her eyes.

“And I’m telling you, right now I can’t—” Frank blows out a breath, voice dropping so low that it cracks at the edges as he goes on. “I can’t think of a single good reason why I thought I had to do that to you.” He somehow sounds ten times more fervent than he does when he’s sober. “And you being here, it’s even harder to—”

“Actually,” Karen breaks in, relieved to hear how steady her voice is. “You know what, Frank, I – I came here to say something to you.”

He glances over at her, looking wary but accepting. “Okay. But I need you to understand that—”

“Don’t.” She stops him, holding her hand out again. It just grazes his shoulder before she’s dropping it into her lap, where it’s safe. “Frank. Please.”

He gazes back at her, waiting.

She takes a deep breath and says, “Look. Your friend Curtis was right. There are some things that I really do need to hear you say to me. But I can’t do that right now, okay? I can’t. Not like this.”

Frank opens his mouth as if to say something, then thinks better of it.

“Not with you smelling like a whole fucking Jack Daniels distillery.”

His lip twitches at that. “Fair enough.”

And then his face is growing somber again as she says, simply, “I came here to tell you that whatever this is, you know I deserve better from you.”

He gives her a nod, slow and careful.

“Okay,” says Frank finally, and she doesn’t think she’s ever heard him this soft. “Okay. So…ask me again in the morning.”

She scoffs out a small, disbelieving laugh. Suddenly she is so very, very tired. “Are you saying this so you can disappear on me again for another five months?”

“No. Karen.” He’s looking at her with a bare kind of intensity, his expression stripped down to something so vulnerable it makes her heart ache. “Ask me again in the morning,” he repeats.

She shakes her head, trying to understand him. “You’re…asking me to stay?”

“There’s room on the couch for both of us.”

She thinks he might be joking – that maybe this is the alcohol talking now, not Frank – but then he’s scooting gingerly back, until he’s leaned snugly against the armrest.

“Besides,” he continues, “it’s getting a little late to drive back.”

As if on cue, Karen’s stifling a yawn. And even if she weren’t physically exhausted, this conversation with Frank has drained her in every other possible way. “This was all a part of Curtis’s plan, wasn’t it.”

Frank makes a noise that’s part fondness, part utter exasperation. “Probably so. He’s a good friend like that.” His gaze flicks back up to hers. “Hey. For what it’s worth – this is already more’n what I deserve.”

“You got that right,” says Karen without any heat, already sinking down into her side of the couch. She bends at the knees just a little, resting them sideways on one of the cushions. Frank’s legs wind up pressed into her thigh, but she’s too tired to care, and the warmth isn’t unwelcome as she drifts slowly off to sleep.

…

She wakes up on the couch alone, with the sun streaming in through Curtis’s blinds. There’s a blanket tucked over her body, and a second one at the other end of the couch, already folded into a neat little square.

It’s quieter here than her place in the city, and she relishes it for a moment, the chirping bird sounds in place of the usual mid-morning traffic. She smells coffee brewing in the kitchen, and more distantly, there’s the sound of a shower getting turned off.

Frank emerges a few minutes later, fully dressed with a head of damp hair that’s curling slightly at his forehead. Her heart gives a stupid little squeeze. He sweeps his gaze over, and something in his whole body seems to loosen at the sight of her there.

“Hey,” he says hoarsely, before disappearing into the kitchen.

By the time he comes out, two mugs in hand, Karen’s sitting up with her back to the armrest, knees folded close to her chest.

“Thanks,” she says, taking a mug and peering as casually as she can manage at him.

He sits down next to her, carefully sandwiching her legs between him and the couch cushions. He’s still emanating an absurd amount of heat, and she tries not to lean her legs into him too obviously, sipping her coffee for warmth instead.

He has some dark circles, and he’s looking a little worn down overall. But he’s clean, and the coffee seems to be doing him good. He glances over at her more than once, as if she might have disappeared on him while he was turned away. Every look that he gives her is a little less restrained, lingering a little longer each time.

“How are you feeling?” she asks him.

“Like I’ve been hit by a truck,” he admits. His voice is like sandpaper, and she suppresses the urge to shiver in response.

“You would be someone who knows what that’s like,” says Karen, and his eyes crinkle at her as he takes another sip of his coffee.

“’M glad you stayed,” he says after a while.

“Me too,” she tells him.

Frank’s still for a moment. And then he sets his mug down on his thigh, slipping his free hand into the space between her feet. He encircles her ankle, thumb stroking her skin, and it’s such an oddly intimate gesture that she has to fight back the impulse to reach for him too.

He senses her gaze on him, raising an eyebrow at her as he asks, “I look as good as I feel?”

“You look terrible, actually.” She smiles.

He smirks sideways at her. “Guess I deserve that.”

Deciding not to resist anymore, Karen leans forward, curling her hand over his. He lets go of her ankle, lacing their fingers together. He looks down at them in some kind of wonderment, throat bobbing on a swallow as he lifts her hand up to his mouth.

“If you kicked me to the curb right now,” he tells her, “I’d deserve that too.”

She shakes her head with another smile, just as another door opens out in the hall. “It’s Curtis’s house, not mine.”

“And please,” Curtis’s voice comes booming around the corner, “feel free to kick him out any time that you like.”

“Maybe after I finish my coffee,” says Karen.

They hear Curtis laugh, and then the sound of the bathroom door being closed.

“And after you’ve, uh. Kicked me out.” Frank clears his throat. “I was thinking we could…keep getting more coffee. Somewhere else.”

“I’d like that,” Karen tells him.

She rearranges her legs over Frank’s lap as he settles back into the couch with his mug, their hands still intertwined.


	2. things you said with too many miles between us

The moment Frank crosses the bridge back into the city, he wonders if he's made a mistake.

Everything suddenly feels too close – the buildings, the view, the vague smell of garbage polluting the truck cabin. He rolls up the windows and cranks the AC instead. He reaches for the volume next, to drown out as much of the street sounds as he can.

He misses the fresh, clean air of the mountains, all that wide open space on the road with nothing else between him and the horizon.

There's not enough room here, for him and his thoughts. Not enough time for them, either; when he'd been driving with no destination in mind, his thoughts had been prone to wandering, too, and it was fine if they returned with no answer, because there was always more time to work them through.

He could feel the longing more acutely then, but at least he could also feel free to hope.

Here, the city feels too impatient for that: the stop-start of it all, the pressure to keep shifting gears that seems to close in on him from every side. As he maneuvers his way through the rest of the city, he thinks about all that sky still behind him, endless, and blue, and beckoning him to turn around.

And then he thinks about what brought him back, and drives on.

…

Frank does a double take when he sees Amy waiting for him on the steps of Curtis's trailer. She vaults up with an ear-to-ear grin as the truck rolls to a stop out front.

He closes the door and says, "How did you know?"

"I could just tell." She skips up to the truck, and flashes a couple of postcards from the inner part of her jacket at him. There's Mt. Rushmore on one of them, the St. Louis arch on the other. "You were starting to sound a little homesick."

Frank shakes his head. "Curt told you, didn't he."

"Yeah, maybe." She shifts her weight from one foot to the other. And then she bursts out, sounding smug, "But also, the dates on these, look – you weren't heading west, you were going the opposite. Clearly you were making your way back to something."

Frank grabs up his bag from the cargo bed of the truck, slinging it over his shoulder. "Okay, detective. C'mere."

She jumps up at him with a crushing bear hug, and he can't help but smile before pulling away. "Yeah, I missed you too."

"You get some good thinking done out there?"

He pulls a noncommittal face. "Sure."

"Great. Can't wait to hear all about it." She's beaming at him, and that's not really something he knows how to say no to. "I was gonna meet up with some friends for dinner, but I was thinking I could help you unpack until then?"

"You have friends?" He grunts as she jams her fist in his shoulder.

"Got at least one right here," she says. "Sorry to be the one to break it to you."

…

"It's spring break, anyway, so it was a good excuse to make some of them drive up here with me." Amy's cross-legged on one of the chairs, munching on snacks she'd found in the cupboard that Curt must have left there for Frank.

"Spring break, huh? Shouldn't you be on a beach somewhere instead?"

Amy gives him a look. "Dive school, remember? That's all we do all day. Be on the beach." She holds out a bag of chips to him, and he sets his duffel aside.

"Let me guess – guns, guns, more guns. And a steady rotation of the same three black hoodies." She gives one of the side pockets a playful little nudge, and a corner of cardstock pokes out of the zipper.

"What's this?" Amy asks, reaching in and pulling out a frayed stack of postcards. Before Frank has a chance to say anything, she's already plucking the rubber band off. It's cracked in the middle, and falls to the floor in one long broken strand. "Jeez. That thing is almost as ancient as you are."

"Hey. Quit that." He makes a move for the cards, but she's shooting onto her feet with a speed that would probably make him proud under any other circumstances. "Hand 'em over, all right?"

"Just a sec."

She starts thumbing through the cards like a kid who's just been trick-or-treating, taking stock of all her spoils.

"I'm serious. Hey."

But the amusement has already faded from her expression, and then she's clearing her throat and carefully realigning the cards, like they're something sacred that she knows she had no right to see.

She doesn't resist him when he takes the cards back, tucking them carefully into his bag.

"Frank…" She shakes her head, baffled, and when he glances back over she looks genuinely upset with him. "Why didn't you send those?"

"Wasn't the point of writing them."

"I'm sorry," she says. "But just to clarify. You wrote those freaking beautiful, heartfelt little notes, specifically to just…keep them all to yourself?" She throws her hands up in the air with abject confusion. Words seem to fail her momentarily, which suits Frank just fine.

He turns away, unpacking the rest of his things. He's checking the status of the fridge next when she starts in again.

"Wait, hang on."

Frank cracks open a cold beer, and sends a silent thank you to Curt for looking out. He sinks into one of the chairs by the table as Amy rounds on him accusingly.

"Are you telling me that that day in the hospital – was that seriously the last time you spoke to her?"

"Wasn't telling you anything."

"Nice," says Amy. "Okay. Sure. Do that thing where you push people away. That's obviously been working so well for you."

"Maybe I was just keeping a diary." He shrugs, ignoring the dig. "Pretty sure people are allowed to do shit like that when they travel."

Amy is unimpressed. "Is your diary also named Karen? Because that would really be some coincidence."

"Look, I didn't write them to be read – by her, or by anyone." His tone is harder than he meant for it to be, and he catches Amy wince a little in his periphery.

"I'm sorry," she says. "I shouldn't have pried."

"'S'okay," he tells her. "It's done."

She comes over to sit next to him. He chugs down some more of his beer, and they're both silent for a while.

"You kept them, though," Amy finally insists quietly to him. "That means something."

"Yeah," says Frank. No point in denying it.

"And for what it's worth," Amy tells him, "she looks at you the same way."

"That was a long time ago," says Frank, getting up to go scrounge for anything resembling real food. "Tell me about these 'friends' of yours. The one who drove you all the way up here – he been treating you right?"

"How did you even—" Amy protests, and Frank swats away the bag of cookies she lobs at his head.

…

After Amy's gone to meet up with her friends, Frank finds his phone and, for the tenth time that week, hovers over Karen's number before setting it back down.

Everything he's come here to tell her – she deserves to hear it from him in person. But calling her, if she even picks up, feels like cornering her into something she has every right to say no to, and at the very least think about before she says yes.

He picks up his phone again.

 _Hey_ , he types into the screen. _It's me. I'm back in town. Would like to see you, if you would be okay with that._

He texts her the address, and reaches for another beer.

Karen's response comes a few hours later:

_Didn't realize you had left again._

And then, after ten long and excruciating seconds:

_I can come by around 3 tomorrow._

_Okay_ , he texts back, and leaves it at that.

…

He hears her car pull up just before 3 the next afternoon.

He meets her outside, waiting for her to step out. She's shielding her eyes from the sun, so he doesn't get a good look at her face right away. She's dressed in dark denim, and a sweater made out of some soft-looking material.

The image stirs up a strange, almost painful sensation in his chest. He realizes he's never seen her not dressed up for work before. He's never seen her as this. Just Karen.

"Hey," he says, approaching as she does. They end up meeting somewhere in the middle, standing awkwardly together in that gravel lot. "Thanks for coming."

"Sure." Karen gives him a small smile. "You look good, Frank."

"Yeah?" he says. "You too."

He's about to invite her inside when she slips her hand into her bag, and then she's holding something out to him. "Here. I wanted to return these."

He looks down.

"Christ," he says, feeling like the wind's been knocked out of him.

She has a small handful of his postcards – whatever Amy must have thought she could get away with stealing out of his bag when he wasn't looking.

He recognizes the one on top. It was the last card he'd written to her – with a picture of some woods up in Oregon, where he'd been hiking when he realized he had it all wrong.

"Not sure you meant for them to get sent."

"No," says Frank, swallowing. They're dated, but he'd never bothered to stamp or address any of them, only starting them each with a single, scrawled _Dear Karen_. "No, but they're yours."

She turns the cards over in her hand. " _Heard your song on the radio as I drove here_ ," she reads aloud. She flips to another one. " _This coffee could give that other place a run for its money_."

He grimaces to hear his words out in the open like this. But she's gentle with them, and with each postcard too, grasping them delicately at the edges as if they might crumple with too much pressure.

" _I've been thinking about what you said_ _,_ " she reads on the back of a card he'd grabbed from the souvenir shop at some grungy Seattle motel. " _About how we're all just trying not to be lonely. To be honest, I think about it all the time_."

There's a slight hitch in her voice at the end, and he finds himself swaying forward a little, remembering where he had been the night that he wrote it. How he'd almost picked up the phone and called her. How his throat had closed up at the thought, and everything he would've said ended up on a stack of cards at the bottom of his bag instead.

"Are there more of these?" Karen asks.

Frank nods. "They're not – I mean, some of them are just – like the one about the coffee. Pretty meaningless."

She's looking at him like they're anything but. "Could I see them?"

"You can have them." He doesn't know how to take his eyes off of her. "You can have all of them."

Karen traces a finger over the Oregon woods before turning the postcard around. " _Wish you were here_." She seems to keep her gaze trained purposely down as she asks him, "Did you mean that, Frank?"

Something breaks inside him at the question. He ducks his head to catch her eye, lifting a knuckle to ghost over her chin. "I did," he says, hoarse but resolved. "Still do."

Karen's quiet for a moment as she regards him, like she's coming to a decision of her own. "Okay," she says finally. "So let's go."

He thinks he couldn't have heard her right.

But as he's standing there, feeling overcome, she's already halfway to her car. Frank watches, dumbfounded, as she pulls a bag out from behind one of the seats and closes the door behind her.

"You're serious," he says. "You don't have work?"

It's everything he hadn't even thought he could hope for, but he doesn't want this disrupting her life either, taking her away from all the things that matter to her.

"I think Matt and Foggy can agree that I'm long overdue for a vacation." She walks back up to him, but his expression seems to make her pause. "If that's all right with you."

"God, yes." Frank moves closer before stopping himself. Steady, he thinks. There's no need to rush anything. They have time. They have time. "That's what I came here to tell you I wanted."

She's the first to reach out and touch him, just a brush of her palm to his chest. It's brief, but gentle to go with her tone as she teases him ever so lightly, "Looks like you already did."

"Looks like," says Frank, and he could just stand here all day, with the soft way she's gazing at him right now. "So we're doing this."

"Looks like," says Karen, and he looks away, smiling.

"I'll get my things." But he's loath to move away from her, and after a split second's hesitation he leans in and lets his forehead rest against hers. Karen's hands come up to his shoulders, and everything else stands still for a moment. "Remind me to send Amy a postcard when we get there."

She makes a small humming sound. "And where is this 'there' going to be?"

"Anywhere," he says. "So long as you're there, doesn't matter."

"Mm. I like that." Karen pulls back and looks a little slyly at him. "Think that could go on a card somewhere too."

Frank shakes his head as she laughs and goes to toss her bag into his truck.


	3. things you said when you were scared

There are a lot of terrible things in life. Death. Taxes. Dirty cops. The list goes on and on. But right now, hospital coffee probably ranks up there amongst some of the worst.

“I swear this was brewed in the tenth circle of hell,” says Foggy to no one in particular as he pours himself his fifth cup for the night.

He dumps in a generous number of sugar packets, and some of that awful instant creamer stuff for good measure. It clumps at the top as he stirs, and has an unpleasant powdery texture when he takes a sip and almost burns his tongue off.

“God, that’s…not good,” he says with a grimace, and heads back to the room.

The hospital’s quiet this late in the evening. After the bustle around shift change at 7, Foggy hasn’t seen many people around. There’s one guy here now, checking in up by the front desk, but other than that it’s been—

“I’m here to see Karen Page.”

Foggy freezes on the spot. He could pick out that gravelly voice anywhere. Which feels like a pretty weird thing to admit, but it’s true.

“Friend or family?” The nurse behind the counter is asking.

Frank Castle looks intensely at the nurse and says, “She’s the only family I got, ma’am.”

The nurse gives him a sympathetic smile, and hands him a sign-in sheet and a pen.

He scrawls something onto the paper, and exchanges it for a bright red visitor badge that matches the one Foggy is wearing.

The nurse tells him the room number, and points helpfully down the hall where Foggy is standing.

He doesn’t know whether to wave or to run in the other direction, the end result of which is that Frank finds him lurking awkwardly behind a meal cart just outside of the room.

“Hey,” says Frank.

“Uh,” says Foggy. “Hey…y.”

“How is she?”

“She’s asleep,” says Foggy, and Frank’s eyes narrow.

“Asleep in what way?” His voice is dark and low and not to be trifled with.

“Right,” Foggy says hastily. “I see how that could have been misconstrued. She’s fine, she’s just sleeping off the anesthesia. The doctor said everything went pretty smoothly.”

“Good.” But it looks like Frank won’t quite believe it until he’s confirmed it for himself. He scans the small glass pane in the door, visibly relaxing a little when he sees her sleeping on the other side.

“So did Matt call you, or?”

Frank says, with a perfectly straight face, “Left a voice note, actually.”

“He did?”

Frank gives him a flat look. “What do you think.”

“I honestly have no idea,” Foggy tells him. “Not sure anyone does. Well, except for – you know.” He gestures at the window, but Frank’s already turned back to her, brow creased.

“I’m going to get some more coffee,” says Foggy. “Do you want anything?”

Frank is still gazing into the room. He rubs one hand over the other, but doesn’t make a move for the door. “What?” he asks, entirely distracted.

“I’m going to get you some coffee,” Foggy tells him firmly. He turns around and heads toward the little waiting area again, making a point not to look back when he stops by one of the vending machines.

He’s deciding between the red and blue Doritos when he hears the soft click of the door latch closed. He goes for the blue, and then takes a seat in one of the armchairs for a while.

He winds up falling asleep with the bag of chips unopened in his lap. It’s about one in the morning when he comes to, and it takes a moment before he remembers what he’s even doing here.

There’s a hell of a crick in his neck, which he supposes a cup of that truly terrible coffee won’t make any worse. As he waits for it to brew, he wonders if Frank is a cream and sugar kind of guy. Probably not. But Foggy had tried it black at first, and it was not a bad approximation of how he imagines motor oil would taste.

Frank is hunched over by Karen in the half-dark, chin in his hands when Foggy walks in with two cups of coffee. He thinks Frank might have fallen asleep, but as the light from the hallway slivers into the room he looks up, his expression registering genuine surprise as Foggy hands him one of the styrofoam cups.

“It’s not—” Foggy starts to warn him.

Frank downs the stuff without even blinking, and if that’s not a sign of someone who’s capable of murder, then Foggy doesn’t know what it is.

“Thanks,” says Frank quietly, and sounds like he means it.

“Sure.” Foggy hesitates for a fraction of a second before sitting down in the chair next to him. He sniffs at his own coffee and almost chokes on it.

“You not gonna go home to your lady?” Frank’s voice has gone so low that it’s practically inaudible. “It’s getting late.”

“I…” Foggy doesn’t know how to put this delicately, so he just tells him outright: “I don’t want Karen to wake up alone.”

Frank looks hard at him in the dim moonlit glow of the room, but it doesn’t appear to be out of anger.

“She won’t.”

“Okay.” Foggy nods. “I guess I’ll see you in the morning.” He pauses before getting up. “Do you want the rest of this?”

“Thanks,” Frank says again, and takes the cup from him.

Foggy’s almost at the door when he looks back. Frank’s reaching for a pocket in his jeans, pulling out a tattered old book that Foggy hadn’t noticed before.

He turns to a page that he’d marked, and starts reading quietly to Karen as Foggy slips out and closes the door behind him.

…

He returns the following morning with a trayful of coffees and some get-well-soon flowers that Marci had insisted he buy on the way. The coffees are from a deli down the street from the hospital – nothing fancy, but they have to be better than the crap that’s served here.

He fumbles with the handle a little while trying to juggle everything, but manages to get a foot inside before leaning his weight against the door and—

He thinks he’s hearing things at first.

But then he hears it again – the distinct sound of laughter, and as Foggy brushes some of the lilies out of his eyes he sees Frank and Karen there, both awake, and both smiling at him.

Laughing. Not smiling, Foggy corrects himself. The Punisher is laughing at him, and he has no idea how he’s even supposed to begin responding to that.

“Need some help there, counselor?”

Frank looks like he hasn’t slept a wink. He also looks like he couldn’t care less. Foggy blinks at him, feeling like he’s looking at a completely different person than the one he’d seen just a handful of hours before. Last night, Frank had been his usual tense and taciturn self. Foggy knew he’d been worried. But he’d also thought that that was just how Frank was.

Now, he looks – he looks like any other guy when he smiles. He looks relaxed. Happy. Relieved.

Huh.

Frank stands up to assist him, and Foggy can’t help but notice that he has to let go of Karen’s hand in order to do so.

He goes for the coffee tray and says, utterly deadpan, “Not trying to poison me this time?”

Foggy can only stare at him for a moment. “He’s got jokes.” He looks at Karen, still in some state of disbelief. “He’s got jokes. How are you feeling?”

“Like it hurts to laugh,” says Karen, but she’s beaming at him as he sets the flowers down at the bedside. “Those are beautiful. Thank you.”

Foggy’s momentarily distracted by the book next to her. He catches a single word – Brontë – before she puts it aside out of view and accepts a coffee from Frank with gratitude.

Frank sips at his own cup and then says to Foggy, “Not bad.” He sits down on Karen’s other side and takes her hand without another word.

“Good,” says Foggy. He meets Frank in the eye. “I’m glad,” he tells him, meaning more than just the coffee. Then he clears his throat, and gives Karen a quick peck on the cheek goodbye.

“I should get going.”

Karen gives him a smile. “And I should get my appendix taken out more often.”

“Too soon,” Foggy frowns.

But then he looks at the way they’re looking at each other – Karen with a fondly exasperated expression, and Frank on his part looking dutifully contrite but also like he’s never going to let go of her hand.

They’re also looking at each other like they’re the only two people in the world right now. And so Foggy sneaks out with his coffee, and lets them.


	4. things you said when you were crying

The first time Frank brings Karen over to the Liebermans’ for Friday night dinner, he could swear David’s eyes almost pop out of his goddamn skull. Sarah is more discreet – if you can call that discreet when she pours out twice as much wine for Frank and Karen, while leaving a more modest-sized glass for herself.

The kids, at least, act more normal about it.

Of course, there’s nothing normal, exactly, about how Frank had come into their lives. But in the last few months since he started coming over with some regularity, they’ve fallen into a routine that feels like the closest to normal – the closest to family – that Frank’s ever going to get.

And then, Karen.

He doesn’t know what he and Karen are. All he knows is what Karen means to him, and for now, that’s enough. The last thing he wants is to fuck it all up. There’s no rush – only that sensation of the floor bottoming out when she looks at him a certain way, or that slip of warmth in his chest when he says something that makes her laugh.

The Liebermans let him off the hook for a while. He doesn’t offer them any status updates, and they don’t pry either – much.

“Listen. Frank,” David says to him one Friday, as they’re unloading the dishwasher. Karen and Sarah are upstairs with the kids, picking out the evening’s activities. “As great as we are at board games, you know this doesn’t count as a double date until you ask her out on like a regular date, right?”

Frank picks up a particularly sharp-looking knife and makes a point of drying the edge. “You want to run that by me again?”

“Nope,” says David. “Not at all.”

The kids are rightfully curious about her, but seem satisfied enough when Frank first introduces her to them as “just an old friend of your Uncle Pete’s.”

Leo ends up being especially impressed with Karen’s board game prowess.

“Got a lot of practice growing up,” Karen explains to her over Risk one night. “I used to play with my younger brother too, just like you.”

“Cool,” beams Leo. “So how old’s your—”

But Frank clears his throat, and says something about ice cream if they want to take a peek in the freezer. They’re bouncing off into the kitchen faster than he can say mint chocolate chip, and he squeezes Karen’s arm for a second before getting up to join them.

Zach, on his part, seems to go selectively mute whenever Karen’s around. He gets more agitated than usual if a game isn’t going his way, and turns fire engine red whenever Karen offers some kind words of encouragement.

Zach, it appears, has a crush.

“Good,” is all Sarah has to say when Frank mentions his theory to her. “You could use the competition.”

“Get out of here,” he scowls, and doesn’t make the mistake of bringing it up again.

…

But it turns out Zach’s not the one in this family that Frank should’ve been watching out for.

It’s early June, just after school’s let out for the summer. David and Sarah have been making threats about moving their Friday night dinners down to the beach.

“I don’t do the beach,” says Frank.

“What Frank means,” Karen cuts smoothly in, “is that he only owns things that come in black hoodie sizes.”

“Easy enough to fix,” says Sarah, looking sly.

“My thoughts exactly.”

“Christ,” mutters Frank, just as Leo’s coming into the kitchen. “Hey, sweetheart. Want to go outside for a bit?”

“Sure!” says Leo, and runs to grab a ball.

Zach’s at some all boys’ camp for the week, so it’s just him and Leo in the front yard, kicking a soccer ball back and forth to each other. It’s not really his thing; he’d grown up with a football practically in his hands at all times, but Leo’s trying out for the team, she tells him, so he’s game for whatever.

As they’re kicking the ball around, she tells him about school, how her favorite classes had gone, what she’s looking forward to with starting a new grade in the fall.

She’s really come into her own this year, he thinks. She’s fierce, and feisty, and it’s maybe more than a little bit terrifying to him, just how much she’s grown.

He can’t look at her these days without thinking of Lisa, and how she would’ve been at this age. But it’s a welcome kind of pain, more of a tender ache in his chest than the thousand-pound weight that he’d gotten so used to carrying alone.

Now, he has the Liebermans. Now he has Karen, and—

Leo’s making a run for the ball when she steps wrong on her ankle – out of the corner of his eye, he sees it twist unnaturally, and then she’s going down with a cry, and Frank’s heart just about stops right there.

He’s by her side in half a second. There’s a rock in the grass that must have tripped up her footing, and he tosses it out of the way before reaching gently down for her ankle.

“It’s okay, shh, shh, shhh. Hey.”

There are actual fucking tears in her eyes, and Frank cannot handle seeing her in any kind of pain. If that rock had been human, he would’ve skinned the thing alive by now.

“It – really – hurts,” she hiccups.

“I know, sweetheart. I know.”

He carefully examines her ankle.

“Listen, you’re gonna be just fine, all right? Nothing’s broken – it looks like a small sprain. We’ll get some ice on it, once we’re back inside.”

He’s crouched down next to her, pulse still hammering up in his throat somewhere. He’s about to ask her if she wants to try putting some weight on it when he notices her looking up at him shrewdly.

He also notices that she’s no longer crying.

“While I have you here,” she says, in a very different tone, “I have a few questions for you.”

“Shoot,” says Frank, rocking back on his heels and trying to decide whether to laugh or shake his head and sigh. He’s probably going to regret this.

“So, you and your friend. Karen.”

Yeah, he’s definitely going to regret this.

“Are you two, like…hanging out?”

He scrubs a hand over his face and says, “Don’t know what you mean by that.”

“I’m fourteen, not four. I’m not stupid. I know what it looks like when two people—”

“Whoa, okay, okay,” says Frank. He stoops down lower so that they’re level with each other. “Don’t say anything that’s gonna make it hard for me to look your mom in the eye later.”

“Fair enough,” says Leo. Then, after a moment, “So if you’re not…hanging out, then what _are_ you doing?”

Frank lets out a sigh. “Your mom and dad put you up to this?”

“Nope,” says Leo, looking smug. “They’d only wish they had.”

“Yeah, you got that right.”

Leo stretches her legs and gives an experimental roll of her injured ankle. “Just suck it up and buy a swimming suit, okay? It’s not that hard.”

“That so?” Frank muses. “Why does it matter so much to you, anyway?”

Leo shrugs. “When I grow up, I want to be just like Karen.”

“Yeah? I don’t blame you, kid.”

“And I want to be loved the way Dad loves Mom. Or the way that you…well, you know what I’m going to say.”

Frank pulls her into a hug, kissing the top of her head as she snuggles into him for a moment. “You will be, sweetheart. You will.” He ruffles her hair before pulling away. “So it was that obvious, huh.”

“Yep,” says Leo, matter-of-factly. “Well. Except to Zach. You should probably break the news to him, after.”

Frank glances up toward the house, and tries to imagine walking back in there, facing Karen like nothing has changed. For all the Liebermans’ endeavoring, it’s their fourteen-year-old daughter who’s going to be the one that refuses to let him off the hook.

“All right,” he says. “You ready?”

“Are you?”

“Smartass,” says Frank. “Don’t tell your parents I said that.”

Leo laughs. He helps her stand, and she puts a foot gingerly into the grass. “Oh, it’s totally fine now,” she says, and Frank shakes his head, retrieving the ball on their way back inside.

Leo goes to help her mom in the kitchen as Karen walks up to Frank with two cold beers in hand.

“Hey,” he says lowly.

Karen gives him a bemused sort of smile. “…Hey,” she says back. “Drink?”

Frank takes the bottle, just to have something to do with his hands. “Look, I was thinking about the, uh – the beach.”

She’s shaking her head. “Frank, it’s fine. I was only teasing earlier. If you don’t want to go—”

“Actually,” he says, “I was thinking maybe we could. Go. Just the two of us.”

Karen blinks at him, disbelieving. “You’re serious.” Her smile is slow-forming. A sunrise. “Okay. Yeah. Let’s do it.”

Frank feels his heart back up in his throat, for entirely different reasons this time. “Okay.” He holds her gaze a moment longer, and realizes he can’t stop smiling either.

Somewhere, there’s the sound of the table getting readied for dinner, and Karen touches his arm before going to help Sarah set up.

Leo catches his eye from across the kitchen and gives him a double thumbs up. She’s grinning from ear to ear, but schools her features into something more neutral as David walks in with a fresh plate of steaks off the grill.

“Here, Dad,” she says. “Let me get that for you, too.”

Jesus.

“Thanks, hon,” says David, none the wiser.

Frank takes a swig of his beer and goes to help man the grill for a while, wondering how to break the news to the Liebermans that they’ve been raising no less than a teenage assassin in their goddamn home.


	5. things you said that i wasn’t meant to hear

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> rated e.

In the year that they've been together, Karen has come to learn that there are few things she loves more than waking up with Frank sleeping next to her.

Morning sex, though. Morning sex might have to be one of them.

They don't normally get a lot of time to themselves before work. Frank's job has him up pretty early – and while Karen's technically her own boss now, she's generally out the door with him, so that she can be home with him later, too.

So on the mornings when she wakes up with enough time to spare, she snuggles just a little bit closer to Frank, and sighs into all of his warmth. She loves him like this, his whole body fitted snugly to hers. The way it responds to her, even while he's asleep – nose burying into her hair, arms tightening their hold to draw her even further in.

And when his breathing starts to change, hands making their slow, steady way up and down the curves of her body – oh, she likes that, too.

On this particular morning, Karen wakes with her back to his chest, their limbs all tangled between the sheets. They're barely into May, the weather heating steadily over the past week, and last night was the first time they'd both slept completely bare.

She stretches a little, just to feel the full length of his body with hers. Frank breathes out a soft, sleepy sound in her hair, stirring some before settling again. He has an arm draped over her side, the other tucked under her cheek like a pillow. His hand is slack, but it closes around hers when she reaches for it, curving her fingers up under his until they're loosely interlocking.

The clock on her nightstand says she has another twenty minutes to enjoy him like this, so she relaxes back into him, and that's when she feels it – his dick at half-mast, snugly pressed to her backside.

She flicks her gaze back to the time.

Hmmm.

Her hips are moving before she's even made up her mind, making slow, steady circles against Frank's lower body. He grunts a little into her hair, arm shifting over her middle. She pictures him waking up to this, and there's a low thrill in her belly at the thought. With his hair all disheveled, blinking back sleep as his breathing starts to shallow with the realization of what she's been doing to him…

She can feel him hardening, with every lazy grind of her body to his. The ache is building between her thighs, and she presses them together, chasing the friction as she takes hold of Frank's other hand and slides it flat over her belly.

His fingers give a twitch. And then, slow but unmistakably measured, his hips start to move.

If he wasn't fully awake before, he most certainly is now.

"Christ," she hears him mutter, a bare rasp of sound that makes her spine arch in response. She feels his exhale, warm on her skin as he noses her hair out of the way. "Someone's been busy, huh."

"Mm." Karen presses herself shamelessly against him now, relishing the noise that comes out of him as she does. "Took you long enough to join me."

Frank's moving over her, looking squinty-eyed at the clock. Satisfied, he leans back down, capturing her mouth in a long, languid kiss before working his way back over her jawline.

He tongues a sensitive spot behind her ear, letting out a low chuckle as she gasps and shifts into him. They've worked themselves into a steady rhythm, the thick, hard length of him hot against her rear.

His fingers dance tantalizingly close to her thighs. His voice is all gravel, and he sounds so terribly amused when he asks her, "Were you going to get started without me?"

"Just thought I'd – help move things along." Karen bites her lip to keep from moaning out loud as he slides his hand down the rest of the way.

"That right?" he whispers hoarsely, sinking a finger into her.

She thinks he hadn't anticipated just how wet she already was, because he seems to lose control for a moment, saying her name with a groan as he dips another finger inside. His thumb finds her clit the next second, pleasure sparking up her spine at his touch.

Frank is dangerously skilled with his hands – that had been no surprise to her, the first time they were together like this. He's agile, but more than that he's utterly attentive, attuned to her body in ways that she hadn't been prepared for. He could make an absolute mess out of her, with a thumb and two fingers, and that mouth of his nibbling away at her earlobe, asking her to come for him.

Oh, she loves him.

She loves him, and she loves how much this turns him on, the rhythm of his hips picking up as he drives her closer and closer to the edge – but they don't have a lot of time, and – _oh_ —

"Wait," she says, breathless. "Stop. Frank."

He pulls his hand away, making a questioning sound, but then she reaches between their bodies, and closes her hand around his dick.

Frank drops his forehead to the curve of her neck, a shudder of understanding coursing through him. He pumps himself slowly in and out of her hand, maneuvering his body to help her position himself at her center.

She takes another moment, just to feel him in her hand – all that velvety smoothness, the ridge that goes straight down in the middle, making him curse when she runs a finger there. She cants her hips back, and he sinks the tip of his dick into her, teasing, a breath huffing out of him that sounds half-strangled with the effort to hold himself back.

He's grasping blindly for her waist as she takes him further in, anchoring their movements together. His fingertips apply just enough pressure to set all her nerve endings at a low simmer. A soft groan escapes him, getting lost somewhere in her hair as he presses into her with his whole body, pushing the rest of the way in.

Her mouth pops open on a moan, pitched low and coming from somewhere deep in her throat. She slides her hand against his, digging the other into her bed sheets.

It's a feeling she doesn't think she'll ever completely get used to.

He's thicker than other guys she's been with, stretching her in a way that feels so intensely fulfilling each time. But more than anything else, she knows that he feels the same way, and it's this moment – when they're both overcome, and their bodies are taking their time readjusting to one another – it's this moment that she loves the most.

Frank's grazing his mouth up her shoulder, finally sucking a kiss to the downward slope of her neck. She closes her eyes, basking in the sensation of it. All the tenderness he can convey in this one simple thing.

She understands everything he doesn't say in that moment.

And then he starts to move inside her.

He thrusts into her slowly, and she moves her hips back against his in kind, for the pure bliss of just feeling him enter her again. Every inch of him makes her keen with the friction, the solidness of his body behind her steady and warm.

The angle's all different from what she's used to, too, his dick hitting up against some new spot that has her clenching around him more than once – " _Fuck_ , Karen," Frank utters as he picks up the pace, and oh, God.

They really should use this position more often.

He seems intent on holding her however he can, but as their hips move together at a more frantic rhythm, he winds up banding his arm around the front of her body, steadying them there. He palms one of her breasts and squeezes.

His voice is hot at her ear. "Need you to touch yourself, Karen."

She drags a hand down to rub at her swollen clit, and it's almost too much, sending small, rapturous shocks through her body. She eases up on the pressure, half-circling there, half-feeling his dick as he moves in and out of her, slick and smooth.

There's a telltale tingle spreading up from her lower limbs, an aching kind of anticipation that's almost unbearable. Frank must sense it coming nearly as soon as she does, because he's drawing out his thrusts into those long, powerful strokes she likes so much, taking her nipple between his fingers and twisting.

And then she's free-falling, everything seizing up with that indescribable pleasure as Frank holds and holds her, and fucks her into oblivion.

He's murmuring things to her, barely audible through the blissed-out static of her mind. Murmuring things, and kissing her shoulder, breathing heavy with desire as he pounds and pounds back into her, his movements growing erratic.

Karen reaches behind her, dragging her nails across the back of his scalp. She feels the shiver run through his entire body, as he's bending down to mouth another tongue-filled kiss to that same spot on her neck. She cranes her head back, giving him better access as he sucks and sucks at her skin, breath growing more and more ragged.

His orgasm shakes through him, and she revels in every inch of it, clenching around him as he presses back into her, and then finally stills. His fingers spasm where their hands are joined, and then all the tension is gone from him in one final shuddering motion. He collapses into her, spent.

She's the first one to move. Frank groans quietly as he slips out of her, resting a warm hand on her hip as she turns to face him.

He brushes the hair from her face, grinning sideways at her. "Morning to you too."

She leans over to kiss him. His tongue meets her halfway, slow and luxurious, like they have all the time in the—

_Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep._

Karen's hand darts out, pressing down on the snooze button with practiced ease. "Not letting you off the hook just yet."

Frank gathers her in for another kiss. "Does it look like I'm complaining?"

…

She's a little late to work.

Okay, maybe she's a lot late to work.

Not that it matters – she's always there before the others anyway – but it does leave her flustered. As if she isn't already, just from mentally replaying all of the very not-safe-for-work parts of that morning.

She hadn't planned on showering, but she hadn't planned on showing up to the office smelling like she's just had sex with Frank, either. Foggy might not notice, but she figures she can at least spare Matt and all his super senses.

This is part of the reason why she's so late, because Frank winds up in the shower with her, and while they don't get _too_ handsy with each other, there's something smugly satisfied about the way he keeps looking at her as she rinses the both of them off.

She wishes she didn't find that so sexy on him.

She—

"Hey, Karen," says Foggy, and she bangs her knee against the inside of her desk.

"You okay there?" Foggy laughs, setting a coffee down in front of her. "You look like you just got in. What was the occasion?"

"Sorry, the what?" Karen clears her throat. _I jumped my boyfriend this morning and wouldn't let him get out of bed. So what's new with you?_ "Oh, just had a late start to the day. Nothing too exciting."

Is it her, or is it hot in this office? She sweeps her hair to one side, getting it off of her neck, and wonders if there's a tie of some kind in her drawer. She's rummaging through the pens and stray paper clips when she realizes that Foggy's still standing there by her desk.

He might be looking at her a bit strangely, but she also might be imagining things, as distracted as she is right now. Goddamn it, Frank. Though she supposes this one's really on her.

"What's up?" says Karen.

The tips of Foggy's ear's turn red. "You've got a, um…" He gestures awkwardly toward the back of his neck. "Right there. You've got a thing."

"Oh." She feels a flush of her own rising up the sides of her face, and she touches her hand instinctively to that spot where her neck slopes down to her shoulder. She doesn't have to be able to see it to guess at what's there.

Okay. This one's definitely on Frank.

"Looks like things are going good with you guys," Foggy offers, then seems to immediately regret even bringing it up. "If you need something to cover it, Marci's always leaving her little scarf things around, I can see if I have one."

"It's fine," Karen's sighing, typing a message to Frank on her phone. _You're in so much trouble_. "You've already seen it, and it's not like Matt can—"

The same thought seems to occur to them at the exact same time.

"You don't think—?" says Foggy. His voice goes all hushed. "Could he just…know? The blood flow there must be all different, right?"

Karen's phone buzzes in her lap. She looks down.

_Murdock there yet?_

Unbelievable.

 _You. Couch. Tonight_ , she types sternly back.

Her phone vibrates another second later.

_You joining me?_

"I mean, it's basically like a bruise," Foggy's saying, taking his coffee and book bag over to his own desk. "Not that it is one, obviously, but the guy would know if you stubbed your toe three days ago, let alone—"

"How is that toe, by the way?" comes Matt's voice by the door. His expression is perfectly passive. It's impossible to tell how much he's overheard, so it's probably safe to assume he's heard everything.

"Still kinda hurts," shrugs Foggy.

"Morning, Matt," says Karen, as he's making his way past her desk.

"Karen," he greets her evenly. And then he points at the left side of his shirt collar and says, "Looks like you have a little something right there."

He laughs outright when she throws one of her paper clips at him, catching it in his hand and walking blithely off toward his office.

Karen's phone buzzes again. She glances down, and bites back another smile as she types in her reply.


	6. things you said at 1AM

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a drunk!frank prequel (see ch. 1).

Frank has been a lot of things. Husband. Father. Comrade in arms.

He’s also been lost. He’s been overcome with a singular vengeance – and he’s lived like a dead man for so long that he was almost unrecognizable, at the end.

Curtis would know. Curtis had been there for much of the downward part of his spiraling.

Still, Frank at his worst must have left a light on, somewhere, even though he refused to see it for a while.

A couple months after he dropped Amy off at that bus station – a couple months of radio silence, in which Curtis’s calls and texts went unanswered, and the only connection he had to Frank was through reports of lowered crime in The Bulletin – the man showed up at his doorstep, with booze and a hangdog expression that had been years in the making by now.

And Curtis had known he’d been right not to give up on him.

It’s slow, and harder some days than others, but little by little, he feels like he’s getting him back. The pieces are all rearranged, and there are some that Curtis suspects may never resurface, but he is, unmistakably, Frank.

Friend. Brother. Occasional pain in the ass.

Still, there’s one thing Frank has never been before, at least as far as Curtis is aware of – and that’s drunk out of his mind, off of three and a half glasses of fucking rosé.

The bottle had been meant for a date with a woman that unfortunately never panned out, and Curtis had all but forgotten he had it, until Frank unearthed it one night after dinner.

“I’ve got other stuff too,” he starts to tell him, but Frank looks like he’s already made up his mind.

“Hey,” says Frank. “This is actually some good shit right here.”

“Have at it,” shrugs Curtis, glancing over with some bemusement as Frank goes to work on the cork.

He pours the first glass and offers it to Curtis, smirking when Curtis shakes his head and reaches for the whiskey.

“Suit yourself,” says Frank, and takes a satisfied gulp of his wine.

Curtis is tempted to ask him where he’d gotten so much practice drinking rosé – but in fairness, he’s the one who’d stocked his kitchen with it. Besides, the last thing he needs is Frank grilling him on his love life, so he lets the subject drop.

“Best four out of five?” he says instead.

Frank looks smug already. “All right.”

Curtis sets up the board as Frank takes the clock, shifting the hands to ten minutes each. Chess was always more of a Bill kind of thing – he and Frank would play the long game, sometimes over the course of a week while they were on deployment together. Curtis preferred checkers, so he and Bill would alternate between the two whenever they hung out, before – well, before.

Now he and Frank are figuring out how to re-navigate things outside of the stakeouts and getting shot up nearly every damn time they were together.

It involves a lot of drinking, mostly. Sometimes the drinking leads to some pretty deep probing into the philosophical meanings of life. Sometimes it leads to a not uncomfortable silence.

Other times, it ends up with Frank lamenting Curtis’s weird taste in “hipster movies,” as he calls them.

“They’re independent films, Frank.”

“That gives them the right to be an unenjoyable viewing experience?”

More recently they’ve gotten into the habit of playing these blitz rounds of chess, without really talking about what it means to either of them.

Curtis supposes that’s part of the point. There may be some things they can only do because there are no words for them.

The TV’s on at low volume while they play, recounting sports moments from earlier in the week. Frank’s on his second glass at this point, and it doesn’t look any less strange to Curtis than the first one had. He takes wide-mouthed gulps, grimacing a little like it’s the first he’s tasting of it each time.

Curtis wordlessly offers him the whiskey, but Frank declines.

Curtis loses the first two games pretty spectacularly, but wrangles a stalemate out of Frank on the third, clearing the board of all but their kings and a couple rogue pawns on each side.

The time constraints are definitely favoring Frank overall – he’s more of a think-on-his-feet kind of strategist, whereas Curtis likes to take his time.

But the wine has loosened him up, and he even offers a smiling “Goddamn” when Curtis sneaks in a win on the fourth.

“Might have to play to the sixth,” Curtis whoops in triumph, and he’s the one to refill Frank’s glass this time.

The stakes are higher on the fifth, and Curtis has just boxed Frank’s queen in a corner. Frank goes very still, staring hard at the board with his glass all but frozen in hand.

The seconds tick down.

It’s unusual enough to have Curtis glance up at him, questioning. Frank looks intensely focused on something, not so much on what he’s looking at – but what he’s listening to, instead.

Curtis flicks his eyes over to the TV and sees a familiar series of names scrolling past the bottom of the screen. It’s a rerun of a news segment that’s been blasting the channels for the past couple of weeks – the latest government takedown, a city councilman with ties to the Italian mafia.

When the story first broke, Curtis had asked him, half-jokingly, whether he had had something to do with it all. But besides the obvious – “He would’ve been dead, if it had been me,” Frank had told him, point-blank – at the center of the guy’s prosecution was none other than Nelson, Murdock & Page.

Curtis reaches over and turns off the TV. Then he does the same for the clock.

“Never asked you who she was,” he says into the ensuing silence.

“Reporter,” says Frank, unhelpfully. A part of his body seems to unhinge as he speaks, and he sits back, downing the rest of his wine in one swallow. “And now some kind of private eye. Look, she’s a lot of things, all right?”

Curtis nods. “Okay. But not what I was asking.”

Frank’s silent.

“When Lewis lost his way—”

Frank gives an indelicate snort. “That what you want to call it?”

“You think I didn’t notice her name all over the news next to yours the day after? How you ‘held her hostage’ to escape the police?”

Frank’s glaring down at his glass. “It was her idea,” he mutters finally.

“Mmhmm.” Curtis raises an eyebrow at him. “And that’s supposed to make me believe she doesn’t mean something to you?”

Frank pours out another glass, knocking back about half before looking over at Curtis again. His eyes are painfully bright.

Curtis leans back in his chair, feeling stunned. “Okay. Shit.”

He lets the weight of this realization settle between them for a moment, heavy and light all at once. It’s everything he could have hoped for, for his friend, but Frank’s looking like his right arm has just been chopped off.

“So what’s stopping you now?” asks Curtis.

Frank opens his mouth, then closes it without a sound. He swallows several times, shifting agitatedly around in his seat, his gaze never quite landing anywhere.

When he finally answers, Curtis expects any variation of the usual – that the people close to him always get hurt, that she deserves better, and so on. They’ve gone through drills like this one so many times that it’s all muscle memory by now.

But instead, what Frank says is, “I don’t know.”

Curtis finds himself trying to keep as neutral an expression as possible. There’s a tenuousness to this, like he’s just found Frank out in the wild and has to let him know it’s safe to come home. Any sudden movement, any careless wording on his part, could cause Frank to close back up.

So he stays quiet, patiently waiting for Frank to go on.

“I know what I tell myself.” Frank’s voice lowers. “Whatever it takes, to keep her safe. But it’s just some bullshit excuse. The only person I’m keeping safe is myself. And I know that.” He falls silent again, and then he stares down at the wine like he’s noticing it for the very first time. “Jesus, what do they put in this?”

Curtis leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “So let me ask you again, Frank. Tell me what’s stopping you _now_. Right now. This second.”

Frank scoffs at him. “Curt – it’s past one in the morning.”

Curtis nods. “You said she was a PI? PI’s keep weird hours, right?”

They stare each other down, unblinking. And then they’re both lunging for Frank’s phone.

Curtis swipes it up a fraction of a second before Frank’s slamming his hand down on the table. He holds it out of reach as they both stand, taking measure of each other for a moment.

“Hey,” says Curtis. “You really gonna try to take down a guy with one leg?”

“Screw you, Curt.” Frank sways in place, face twitching with ill-concealed anger. “Never took you for one to kick a friend while he’s down.”

Curtis shakes his head. “Quit being dramatic.” He scrolls through Frank’s contacts – the list isn’t long – and stops at the only number there without a name attached to it. He makes a mental note before tossing Frank his phone back.

Frank pockets the phone, regarding him in a stony kind of silence.

Curtis points genially at the board. “You up for finishing this game?”

Without taking his eyes off of Curtis, Frank reaches over, and flicks the king onto its side with a clatter. Then he stalks off to the bathroom without another word.

Curtis shrugs, and retrieves his own phone, dialing in Karen’s number. “He can thank me later.”

He hadn’t expected her to answer right away, but she does, and if she’d been asleep there isn’t a trace of it in her voice – only a panicked alertness, a _Hello?_ and _What happened?_ in rapid-fire succession that makes him backtrack right away.

“Everything’s fine,” he tells her, feeling a bit like a heel for worrying her over nothing. “However, this does concern, um – a mutual friend of ours,” and around that time is when Frank comes out of the bathroom.

The idiot actually tries wrestling the phone from his hands, and in the back of Curtis’s mind he wonders if he’s doing right by Frank or by Karen. Frank may be a hot mess, but he’s being a terribly earnest hot mess. Even though it’s unfair to Karen, Curtis doesn’t know the next time Frank will be this honest with himself.

“Listen to me, Frank,” he says, as soon as he’s off the phone. “First off, she’s coming, so get it together. Second off, you smell like a desperate housewife, man. And your girl doesn’t really strike me as the rosé type.”

Frank looks like he’s grinding his teeth together, half-conceding his point, and half-furious about it.

“Hand me the whiskey,” says Frank, and so Curtis does.

…

Karen is everything he’d been expecting, and more. She’s tall, for one thing, only a few inches shorter than Curtis; steel-eyed, even for well past two in the morning; and she has very little tolerance for the state that Frank is currently in, speaking to him like a toddler long overdue for a time-out.

Curtis has to bite the inside of his cheek, trying to keep from smiling too obviously.

Frank looks like a spring wound up too tight, stalking in circles at the opposite end of the living room. He’s doing his best not to look directly at Karen, as if the mere act of making eye contact with her will be the start of his entire undoing.

All he needs is a push. He’s waiting for it; Curtis knows. As obtuse as Frank’s willing to be sometimes, even he understands that it’s only a matter of time, now.

It is thus that Curtis leaves his friend at Karen’s mercy, without a doubt in his mind that he’s done the right thing.

And when he finds them together on that couch the next morning, nothing but the softest of glances and two cups of coffee forgotten between them, Curtis sees absolutely no reason to hide his smile from them anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you might have noticed that the chapter count changed…this is it! i have two other prompts for this series that ended up getting away from me (we've got a frank and foggy brotp coming up, and a frank and karen road trip fic!) - and i'll post those separately once they're finished. hope that's okay. thanks for sticking through it with me, hope you enjoyed this collection of oneshots!


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